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Mesolithic Bone Tools of South-West Europe : the Example of the French Site of Le Cuzoul De Gramat Benjamin Marquebielle

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Mesolithic Bone Tools of South-West Europe : the Example of the French Site of Le Cuzoul De Gramat Benjamin Marquebielle Mesolithic bone tools of South-West Europe : the example of the French site of le Cuzoul de Gramat Benjamin Marquebielle To cite this version: Benjamin Marquebielle. Mesolithic bone tools of South-West Europe : the example of the French site of le Cuzoul de Gramat. 7th Meeting of the Worked Bone Research Group, Sep 2009, Wroclaw, Poland. hal-01990262 HAL Id: hal-01990262 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01990262 Submitted on 11 Feb 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Written in Bones Studies on technological and social contexts of past faunal skeletal remains edited by Justyna Baron Bernadeta Kufel-Diakowska Uniwersytet Wrocławski Instytut Archeologii Wrocław 2011 InstItute of ArchAeology, unIversIty of Wrocław, 2011 Editors Justyna Baron and Bernadeta Kufel-Diakowska Reviewers Arkadiusz Marciniak, Jarosław Wilczyński Layout Janusz M. szafran, Jarosław Michalak Cover Justyna Baron © Institute of Archaeology, university of Wrocław and individual authors 2011 IsBn 978-83-61416-64-7 Wrocławska Drukarnia naukowa PAN im. stanisława Kulczyńskiego sp. z o.o. 53-505 Wrocław, ul. lelewela 4 Contents Preface . 5 Methods and methodology steven P. Ashby The Language of the Combmaker: interpreting complexity in Viking-Age Industry . 9 elisabeth A. stone The Role of Ethnographic Museum Collections in Understanding Bone Tool Use . 25 Materials and technology Aline Averbouh, Jean-Marc Pétillon Identification of “debitage by fracturation” on reindeer antler: case study of the Badegoulian levels at the Cuzoul de Vers (Lot, France) . 41 Bárbara Avezuela Aristu, esteban Álvarez-fernández, Jesús Jordá Pardo, emilio Aura tortosa The barnacles: A new species used to make a Gravettian suspended object from Nerja Cave (Málaga, Spain) . 53 Benjamin Marquebielle Mesolithic bone tools in Southwestern Europe: the example of the French site of “Le Cuzoul de Gramat” . 63 Stefan Pratsch Mesolithic antler artefacts in the North European Plain . 79 Marcin Diakowski Bone and antler artefacts from Pobiel 10, Lower Silesia, Poland. Are they really Mesolithic? . 93 selena vitezović The Neolithic Bone Industry from Drenovac, Serbia . 117 Erika Gál Prehistoric antler- and bone tools from Kaposújlak-Várdomb (South-Western Hungary) with special regard to the Early Bronze Age implements . 137 Peggy Morgenstern Typical hide working tools from the late Bronze Age of Moldova . 165 Corneliu Beldiman, Diana-Maria Sztancs, Viorica Rusu-Bolindeţ, Irina Adriana Achim Skeletal technologies, metal-working and wheat harvesting: ancient bone and antler anvils for manufacturing saw-toothed iron sickles discovered in Romania . 173 4 Katrin Struckmeyer The bone tools from the dwelling mound Feddersen Wierde, Germany, and their functions . 187 Marloes rijkelijkhuizen Dutch medieval bone and antler combs . 197 hans christian Küchelmann Whale Bones as architectural elements in and around Bremen, Germany . 207 Marloes rijkelijkhuizen Large or small? African elephant tusk sizes and the Dutch ivory trade and craft . 225 Bernadeta Kufel-Diakowska The Hamburgian Zinken perforators and burins – flint tools as evidence of antler working . 233 Social contexts Heidi Luik, Mirja Ots, Liina Maldre From the Neolithic to the Bronze Age: continuity and changes in bone artefacts in Saaremaa, Estonia . 243 florentina oleniuc, luminiţa Bejenaru Preliminary Data Concerning the Manufacturing of Animal Raw Materials in the Chalcolithic Cucuteni B Settlement of Poduri-Dealul Ghindaru, Romania . 263 Manuel Altamirano García Bone industry from the Bronze Age in Central Iberia. The Settlement of La Motilla Del Azuer . 273 Justyna Baron Ritual contexts of animal bone deposits from the Roman Iron Age settlement at Magnice, SW Poland . 285 Felix Lang Activity not Profession. Considerations about Bone Working in Roman Times . 295 Magdalena Konczewska Bone, horn and antler working in medieval Wrocław . 305 Kamilla Pawłowska The remains of a late medieval workshop in Inowroclaw (Kuyavia, Poland): horncores, antlers and bones . 313 Authors’ Adresses . 321 Benjamin Marquebielle Mesolithic bone tools in Southwestern Europe: the example of the French site of “Le Cuzoul de Gramat” the Mesolithic osseous material industry of southwestern europe seems to be less developed than in northern europe, where Mesolithic bones tools are plentiful and have been more extensively studied. only a small number of studies have been realized and no general synthesis exists at present. Is this because the Mesolithic populations had virtually no osseous material industry or did the remains simply suffer from poor preservation conditions? this paper advances some arguments in favour of the second hypothesis by presenting the results of a technological study of the osseous material industry at the french site of “le cuzoul de gramat”, situated in the lot region. this deposit is fa- mous for its substantial stratigraphy that is dated to the recent phases of the Mesolithic. faunal remains, and thus the osseous material industry, are well preserved in the limestone environment. We identified several technical transforma- tion schemes and provide evidence of real choices in the selection of raw materials and their exploitation. It is quite a new image of the Mesolithic osseous material industry that begins to appear. Keywords: axe, le cuzoul de gramat, deer antler, Mesolithic, technological analysis, wild boar canine Introduction surrounded by Azilian cultures and their harpoons studying a site with good conditions for the preser- and neolithic cultures and their awls, the Mesolithic vation of organic remains and a long period of oc- cultures of southern france seem to have developed cupation. only a small-scale osseous material industry. While the french site of “le cuzoul de gramat” is one there are a large number of Mesolithic sites, these of the major sites for understanding the Mesolithic in deposits often consist of open-air sites or are situated southern france. It was first excavated between 1922 in environments unfavourable to the preservation of and 1933 by r. lacam and A. niederlender, who organic material. published a very good study (lacam et al. 1944). Does this scarcity imply that bone tools were their work helped develop the first cultural and rare during Mesolithic? or does it simply show that chronological definitions of the french Mesolithic. the remains of this exploitation suffered from poor however, r. lacam and A. niederlender presented taphonomic conditions? And, in this latter case, is only a small number of bone tools in their publica- it still possible to reveal the typological, technical tion. they did not see, or did not pay attention to and economic peculiarities of the Mesolithic osseous the significant amount of debitage waste.n owadays, material industry? to try to answer this, we began by with the development of technological studies, these 64 Benjamin Marquebielle fig. 1: localisation of Le Cuzoul de Gramat . DAo : A. Marquebielle remains appear to be rich in information concerning osseous material industry of the ancient collections the modalities of exploitation of osseous raw mate- (Marquebielle 2007), by applying a technological rials, often even richer than the finished objects. In approach, such as that defined in particular by A. 2005, n. valdeyron, of the university of toulouse, Averbouh (Averbouh 2000; Averbouh, Provenzano began new excavations and allowed us to study the 1999). The site and stratigraphy of “Le Cuzoul de Gramat” le cuzoul de gramat consists of a rock-shelter and A. niederlender defined seven stratigraphic levels a cave located in the lot region of france (fig. 1). It (fig. 2). Adhering to the Mesolithic partition of the is situated at the bottom of a vast depression (doline) time (coulonges 1935), they attributed the oldest in a karstic region. It is famous for its substantial level to the sauveterrian period, the five following stratigraphy – covering the entire Mesolithic period to the tardenoisian period and the most recent to the (providing information especially about the recent neolithic. At present, the term “Tardenoisian” is no phases) – and for a Mesolithic burial. r. lacam and longer used for the Mesolithic of southern france fig. 2: stratigraphic section made by R . Lacam et A . Niederlender . skeleton is represented in level II Mesolithic bone tools in Southwestern Europe: the example of the French site of “Le Cuzoul de Gramat” 65 but it is necessary to understand it here in the sense ods. the “Tardenoisian” levels, as r. lacam and A. of the “second Mesolithic”. niederlender called them, on the other hand, are well We know now that levels 1 and 7, as defined byr . dated to the second Mesolithic thanks to the lithic lacam and A. niederlender (the oldest and the most industry. We consequently studied the osseous ma- recent respectively, the numbering of levels being terial industry of these levels, considering the five inverted in the publication), are not homogeneous. levels as one because firstly, the distinction between level I, the oldest, is a mixture
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